No idea, and we need px to wean himself off boring American elections and devote his attention here, but I would figure they'd be a logical intermediate host for disappointed PASOK voters floating back?

Obviously you don't need my help. You pretty much nailed it.

But the question is, why are they floating back ?

For the same reason 90% of Republicans will vote for Romney even though they don't like him.

No idea, and we need px to wean himself off boring American elections and devote his attention here, but I would figure they'd be a logical intermediate host for disappointed PASOK voters floating back?

Obviously you don't need my help. You pretty much nailed it.

But the question is, why are they floating back ?

For the same reason 90% of Republicans will vote for Romney even though they don't like him.

No idea, and we need px to wean himself off boring American elections and devote his attention here, but I would figure they'd be a logical intermediate host for disappointed PASOK voters floating back?

Obviously you don't need my help. You pretty much nailed it.

But the question is, why are they floating back ?

For the same reason 90% of Republicans will vote for Romney even though they don't like him.

If the alternatives were worthwhile then PASOK would have been in even more trouble. But most left parties are jokes. Besides their fervent anti-EU rhetoric they have nothing substantial to say, not a single serious proposition about how to handle the current crisis. Anodyne platitudes and a stringent refusal to enter any kind of coalition government just vindicate PASOK's argument that a vote for SYRIZA, DIMAR or KKE is a vote wasted.

And don't forget that PASOK had a hard core of around 35% of the electorate between 1977-2009. It's not that easy for these people to vote for another party after a lifetime of being staunch supporters of PASOK. Most of them haven't voted for another party in their entire life.

How is it that PASOK is winning back dissatisfied voters while led by the guy that was FINANCE MINISTER throughout the entire term (and still is)?

Venizelos became finance minister last June after threatening Papandreou that he and his group of deputies would topple the government. Giorgos Papakonstantinou was until then and he took the blame for virtually everything by the media and his colleagues, even though he was constantly undermined by the likes of Venizelos and the rest of the old guard which didn't lift a finger to help with the necessary reforms.

I'm hoping that SYRIZA will overtake PASOK (I was hoping that DIMAR would back in February and March, but that hasn't worked out). Then it could hopefully overtake ND. I'd then hope for a SYRIZA-KKE-DIMAR-Greens coalition.

There are no real liberal/conservative parties in Greece and that's our biggest problem. Everybody from the far left to the far right favors our current system of elephantine government, absurd regulations and bureaucracy, and crony capitalism.

Also, does Greece plan to do anything about this ridiculous "give the winner 50 free seats" bulls**t at some point? When the "winning" party may well get <25% of the vote?

There would be a point to that if the smaller parties had shown a willingness to form coalitions and participate in governing. But almost all of them (especially the left wing ones) have done the exact opposite and ruled out from the outset any such possibility. They are going after the protest vote and they couldn't care less about helping our country in any way.

PASOK did introduce a fully proportional system in the late 80s. That led to three elections in a year and to the abandonment of the idea by the Greek political ruling class.

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PASOK did introduce a fully proportional system in the late 80s. That led to three elections in a year and to the abandonment of the idea by the Greek political ruling class.

They did it after the Koskotas scandal erupted, to prevent ND from getting a majority in the parliament. They never really believed the idea of coalition governments and certainly the way the left behaved that period did nothing to prove them wrong.